In recent years, in an optical fiber cable, the desires of a higher density and a thinner diameter have been increased. In order to attain the ultimate thin diameter, it is more advantageous to gather optical fiber cores each having a single core together than a structure of the optical fiber ribbon. However, in a case that the optical fiber cores each having the single core are gathered together, there is a problem that a connecting workability may be deteriorated, for example, such that a batch fusion splicing is impossible.
In order to solve this problem, in the optical fiber ribbon having two or more optical fiber cores arranged in parallel to each other, the optical fiber ribbon of an intermittently fixed type in which a plurality of coupling portions coupling only the optical fiber cores adjacent to each other are arranged two-dimensionally and intermittently in a longitudinal direction and a width direction of the optical fiber cores has been proposed (for example, refer to patent documents 1 to 5).
In addition, by the expansion of recent FTTH (Fiber To The Home), the optical fiber ribbon often has been separated into single cores to connect to each of the optical fiber cores each having single core.
When this connecting work is carried out, an outer diameter of the coating of the optical fiber core becomes larger than a hole diameter of a mechanical splice or a field assembled connector if a tape forming member is left on the outer circumference of the optical fiber core having the single core, and thus, things may occur where the optical fiber core may not be inserted into those hole portions. Hence, after separating the optical fiber ribbon into the single core, processing for removing the tape forming member on the surface of the optical fiber core is required.